Backgammon – Three General Strategies
In very general terms, there are 3 chief plans employed. You need to be agile enough to switch techniques quickly as the course of the game unfolds.
The Blockade
This comprises of assembling a 6-deep wall of checkers, or at a minimum as deep as you can manage, to block in your opponent’s checkers that are located on your 1-point. This is deemed to be the most acceptable course of action at the begining of the match. You can create the wall anyplace inbetween your eleven-point and your two-point and then shuffle it into your home board as the game progresses.
The Blitz
This involves locking your home board as quickly as possible while keeping your competitor on the bar. e.g., if your challenger tosses an early 2 and shifts one piece from your 1-point to your 3-point and you then toss a five-five, you can play 6/1 6/1 eight/three eight/three. Your opposer is then in serious trouble due to the fact that they have two pieces on the bar and you have closed half your inside board!
The Backgame
This plan is where you have two or more anchors in your competitor’s inner board. (An anchor spot is a position consisting of at least two of your pieces.) It should be employed when you are decidedly behind as it much improves your circumstances. The better locations for anchor spots are near your opponent’s lower points and either on adjoining points or with a single point separating them. Timing is critical for a powerful backgame: at the end of the day, there is no point having two nice anchor spots and a complete wall in your own inner board if you are then required to break up this straight away, while your opposer is shifting their checkers home, taking into account that you don’t have any other spare checkers to shift! In this case, it’s more tolerable to have pieces on the bar so that you are able to preserve your position up until your opponent provides you a chance to hit, so it will be a wonderful idea to attempt and get your challenger to hit them in this situation!
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